NSCS: Kevin Harvick Comes Up One Spot Short in Texas

Kevin Harvick has been ‘freaky fast’ all season long and that continued at Texas Motor Speedway as he led numerous laps throughout the night. However, at the end of the race, the defending series champion would come up one spot short, finishing second to Jimmie Johnson.

“Just really proud of my team for the battle that we had this weekend with the car, through practice and even at the beginning, really all night, just trying to battle the balance of the car and that’s pretty typical as you come to Texas,” he commented. “In position to win.  Everybody is doing a great job, and just kind of got hung up behind the 22 (Joey Logano) and the 1 (Jamie McMurray) car there.  Just lost a little bit of time and tried to make too much of it up in too many chunks and about spun out and got in the fence trying to make up ground.  All in all, it was a lot of fun.  Fun to race that way.”

The final dash for the checkered is where Harvick saw the most action for the night, restarting just outside the top-five after some drivers chose to take two tires while he took four. He quickly made his way through traffic, getting hung up behind Logano for a second. Logano would come down to block entering turn one, in which Harvick gave him a slight nudge and sent him up the track. Commenting post-race he said, “You knock them out of the way, and that’s the chance you take when you block”.

He would then chase down Jamie McMurray and make the move, however would get passed by Johnson in the process. Harvick then tried to chase down Johnson, getting in the wall twice, but was unable to catch him. The battle between Harvick and Johnson is something that we’ve already seen a couple times this year, with Harvick getting the upper-hand at Auto Club Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

“They just have a really good setup for here for sure, and I think as you look at the history, this is just a racetrack that fits everything that they do, so they just know — he knows the feel that he wants in the car, and that changes as to what’s underneath the car, and they just do a really good job and make it happen when it’s time to get to the race,” Harvick commented on Johnson. “I think when you look at those two racetracks, he’s got a pretty good track record, as you look back at them. There’s just those racetracks that you have those types of feels for, and obviously for him those are just a couple of them.  He’s won quite a few of them.”

Despite coming up short of the victory, Harvick says he’s “not disappointed at all”, but rather proud of the whole team for working as hard as they did to put him in position to win the race.

“When you can get out there and race like that and come home with stripes down the side of it, everybody is out there hopefully enjoying the show with everybody racing as hard as they did tonight,” he commented. “That’s just what we come to do is to try to be competitive every week, and we hadn’t put it together at this particular racetrack, but with this team and this group of guys, we’ve led a bunch of laps the last three times that we’ve raced here and finished second twice. 

“Maybe we’ll just save the first-place finish for the Chase race.  Hopefully that’ll come sooner rather than later, but they’re doing a great job.  There’s nothing at all to hang your head about.  There’s no way you’re going to win them all, that’s for sure.”